Lately

This month has been somewhat of a whirlwind. We moved from Auburn to Rexburg, and I'm still pretty stinking homesick. I hear that will pass, though.

On Thursday, Tyler was sick and Macie wasn't feeling well, either, but I'm pretty sure that had more to do with teeth than a virus. Nurse Mommy/Wife to the rescue! What a busy day!! I ended up sleeping (or not sleeping) in the living room with Macie in her pack and play that night, rather than get up and down out of bed all night long. I thought it was going to be a really crappy night, and for the most part it was rough. From about midnight to two was nice for me, though! Macie would only really sleep if I snuggled her. While I was holding my little girl, I couldn't help but feel incredibly blessed. This tiny person smiles whenever I walk into the room; reaches out to me when she wants me; plays with me every day! She can't verbally tell me she loves me, but I know she does. She's almost eight months old and already gives me kisses. She hugs my neck when she gets excited, and she squeals when we play. It's heaven on earth! When I was snuggling her, she opened her eyes, grabbed the collar of my shirt, smiled and fell back to sleep. For all the things that happen that drive me crazy or make me nauseated, those snuggles, smiles, hugs and daily playtime sure make up for it!!

Our entire lives we prepare for motherhood (or fatherhood), but we aren't ever really ready. Heck, I find myself second guessing all the time! How do I  know I'm doing things right? To me, it's when we read books and she does the touch and feel parts. Or when she says, "Ma ma ma ma." Or the times she pulls herself up on my arms and looks at me with a look that says, "Aren't you proud of me, Mom?" and shrieks. Or when it's bedtime, and we read family scriptures. She sits on my lap with her bottle and quietly listens. Most of the time she doesn't fight us when we help her fold her arms. I know she is on the right track, and I know that Tyler and I are doing things the best we can.

On a more fun note, we took Macie to Porter Park for the first time! She wasn't too thrilled with the slides, but she really loved swinging!! She smiled quite a bit, especially when playing with her daddy. She's such a daddy's girl, and it's so fun for me to watch!

Yep...that's about all that's been on my mind lately! 

No, she is not posing! I love how photogenic she is!!!

Testimony

So it's been a while. Again. I tell ya, I'm terrible at this stuff! A lot has been going on. My sweet baby is already four and a half months old. Let me tell you, she has a giant personality, and will tell you when she's happy, but that can turn around in half a second. She's growing every day, and is a little sponge that absorbs everything around her!

We're getting ready to move to Rexburg in August so Tyler can complete his Bachelor's degree. We're both looking forward to it. I get to be near my sister and her soon-to-be husband, as well as two of my closest friends and Tyler's cousin.

Let's get to the real reason for this post.

Today I watched the broadcast from the Marriott Center in Utah. I know they made some announcements regarding missionary work, but they focused heavily on member missionary work, and how we need to not be afraid to talk about the gospel with those around us. I have ALWAYS been terrible about sharing my testimony. I have one - a strong one - but I'm soft spoken when it comes to sharing it with others. I shouldn't be; I know that. But I am. I think a lot of it has to do with me loving the gospel so much, and having a fear of it being rejected. Especially by my friends. After listening to the words that were said tonight, though, I really felt like I should share my testimony.

I love this church. I love my Savior and my Heavenly Father. I know that Jesus Christ lives, and that he atoned for our sins. I know He knows everything I have ever gone through, and feels the joys and pains with me. I know that Joseph Smith saw God the Father and Christ, who led him to restore the Church. Thomas S. Monson is the living prophet, called by God to lead this church. He receives direction and instruction from the Lord.
Without a doubt, I know that families are eternal when sealed by the proper authority in the temple. I WILL see my dad and my uncle again. I will get to be with my husband and my children for all eternity if we live righteously and keep the covenants we have made.
The Book of Mormon is true. It is the word of God. It brings us happiness, peace, wisdom and answers to prayers. We receive answers to prayers, and, when followed, they bring us joy. Sometimes the answers don't come right away, and sometimes they are not the answers we are looking for, but they will always bring happiness when followed.
This is the true church. It just is. I know that when we take the time to read The Book of Mormon and pray to know the truthfulness of the gospel, we will find that it is indeed true. I love the gospel, and am grateful for the influence it is in my life on a daily basis.

I hope you really read all of that! If you did, you rock.

Macie's birth story

After Macie was born, I was overwhelmed. She had a twelve day stay in the NICU, which gave me a little downtime to write the following. Hopefully you'll bear with me - it's really long. And posting it is kind of overdue.

2/10/13

She's here! 6 lb 8 oz and 18.75" long!

What a whirlwind of a week. Macie Arin Mallory was born on February 4, 2013 at 2:29 pm at Swedish Medical Center after exactly twelve hours of labor. She weighed 6 lbs 8.3 oz and was 18 ¾ inches long. We went to the hospital at 5:30 since my contractions had only been getting stronger since 2:30 that morning. Labor was fairly easy, but it was planned to be that way. Due to my Marfan syndrome, the providers did not want me to feel my contractions, so I was given an epidural almost immediately after being admitted at 8:00 am. I have to say, what a wonderful thing! For most of the labor process, I didn’t feel a thing! They monitored contractions, obviously. My baseline on the paper was 20. About two hours before she was born, I really started feeling the contractions. Mom said the monitor was reading all the way up to 120-125. They were really strong contractions! I needed the anesthesiologist to give me a bolus of more medication three or four times. I still didn’t feel a whole lot of relief, so the doctor came back to check me about 2:00. Tyler, Mom and Sandy had just gone to the cafeteria to get something to eat since Ty hadn’t eaten all morning. When my cervix was checked, Dr. Sameer Gopalani’s eyes got huge and he said to call Tyler back because I had gone from 5 centimeters to 10 centimeters in a little over an hour! While they were prepping for delivery, Tyler and Mom made it back. I was told they didn’t want me pushing. The plan had been to use forceps while I push for a few minutes, but it went back to using just forceps. Apparently it was a good thing I couldn’t feel anything from my waist down. Tyler looked at me with wide eyes and said the resident who was going to perform the delivery had her entire hand inside of me. Macie had her little hand next to her face, so they were moving her hand back. The forceps went in, and Tyler said they pulled only twice before our little girl made her entrance. It didn’t take long before she started to cry! Tyler and I looked at each other, both with tears in our eyes, and smiled.

Daddy holds his baby girl for the first time!

Tyler got to cut her cord, and she was taken to the warmer. While she was at the warmer, I got stitched up – I had two small tears and a hematoma. They got Macie a little cleaned up, wrapped her in a blanket and put her in my arms. I loved her immediately!! I have never loved anyone like I love her. I would give anything for that sweet baby, and so would her daddy. Something ended up being wrong – Macie wasn’t breathing correctly; her chest was retracting too much. They took her up to the NICU to monitor her, but before they did that, Tyler gave her a father’s blessing. I couldn’t hear everything he said because he was trying to do it quietly, but Mom and Sandy say he was very emotional and could barely make it through. That night she was put on a CPAP machine. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong, only that her oxygen was very low. Scott and Tyler decided she needed a healing blessing, and went to give her one. Almost immediately afterward, the doctors did an x-ray and found a pneumothorax in her left lung that took up the entire side of the outer wall.

First time I got to hold her for more than three minutes

The next morning they let me have skin time with her. What a relief to hold my sweet baby girl! I had never felt such joy! Her eyes were wide open and she would follow Tyler with them as he talked to her. Her oxygen level still wasn’t where they wanted it to be, so that night they intubated her and put her on a ventilator. When we got the call that she was being intubated, Tyler and I were alone in our room for the first time all night. I sat in bed with Tyler’s arms wrapped around me and sobbed. Our baby was sick. It was scary seeing her with all the tubes down her throat. She was not the most responsive, and it was hard on both of us to watch her. I felt helpless; I couldn’t do anything for Macie, and it broke my heart. I wanted so badly to just hold her close and tell her everything was going to be alright, but I didn’t know that myself. I had to trust in the Lord and remind Him of that blessing I’d received the night before. That blessing was one of the most incredible blessings I had ever received! I don’t remember everything from it at this point. I do remember the exact phrase, “Macie knows how much we love her. The three of us chose to be a family. Heavenly Father sent her to us knowing we would love her like He does.” That was perhaps the most powerful moment since our sealing. At that moment I knew just how much my Father in Heaven loves and trusts me. It’s a miracle to bring a little spirit into this world and give them a body. I know without a doubt that Macie knew the trials that she would have after immediately entering this world. As much as it hurts Tyler and me emotionally, it also has been strengthening us. It has allowed us to rely on each other and on the Lord, and has brought us closer together as a couple.

Hooked up to the oscillator and under the UV light.

Macie’s lungs still weren’t really responding to her treatments on the ventilator. Dr. Emmy (I can’t remember her last name since we all just call her Emmy) decided that they best treatment would be an oscillator. It’s a machine that holds her lungs open enough and does all the breathing for her. It doesn’t allow them to close, and keeps them essentially at rest so her pneumothorax could heal. That really seemed to do the work! After just two days on the oscillator, Macie’s pneumothorax was close to being gone! It was healed enough that the doctors felt comfortable taking her tubes out. She had been put on a sedative called Fentanyl since she was trying to fight a little against the tubes, so that caused her to stop breathing on her own once they had extubated her. They re-intubated her and put her on the ventilator. She was on it for just another day before she was able to come off. She did quite well holding her own oxygen yesterday (2/9), but they still felt like she needed just a little assistance, so she’s on a cannula now. The only reason she needs assistance is because her oxygen levels drop when she throws a fit. She’s being fed breast milk down a tube and has been tolerating it so well that they’re thinking she might be able to actually breastfeed in just a day or two!! Dr. Emmy thinks that she might be able to come home on Saturday, 2/16!

That’s where we’re at right now. Now I just want to write a little about how I’ve felt all week.

Off the ventilator

I’m finally starting to feel better. It was really hard for me realizing we’d be coming home without Macie. We actually came home tonight, and I haven’t really been able to stop crying. I’ll get to that later, though. I’ve heard my entire life that the love a parent has for a child is remarkable. I’ve always wondered what that feels like, and couldn’t really imagine feeling love for someone having never met them. I loved her when I was pregnant. I thought I had that love then! Once she was born, it multiplied infinitely! I can’t even describe it. I want to give her everything! Watching her in her little bed in the NICU, my chest feels like it’s going to explode with happiness! I get butterflies when I hold that little girl. Life is good with her, even through the hard things. I’ve been thinking a lot lately about trials. I’ve been wondering, since Macie is not going to remember any of this, if we are going through this to somehow help Tyler and I learn something. I’m not sure what that something is yet, but I truly feel like this trial is for us and not our baby. It’s been a trying week. I read a quote on one of my friends’ walls on Facebook that has really been sticking with me this week: “God gave you this life because He knows you can handle it.” That’s been with me so much this week because I’ve had many times where I feel I can’t handle it anymore. That’s the great thing about the priesthood and about prayer. So many people have been praying for Macie that I’ve been touched greatly. The prayers that have gone up in our family’s behalf have truly been felt. It’s a miracle that she has progressed so quickly in her healing.

I feel like I have been kind of snappy with Tyler, though. I don’t mean to be. I know that he’s hurting, too. I also know that he’s just trying to make me feel better about the situation. One thing I’ve noticed and always appreciated about him is that he is truly a positive person. It’s been a huge blessing during all of this. He is also strong. He has been so strong during all of this, that sometimes I question whether he hurts like I do. I know he does, though. He feels like he has to be strong. Sometimes I wish that he would just let it out and cry to me. I want to know how he’s feeling. I want to know the love he has for his baby girl. Man, the way he looks at baby Macie is just something else! I’ve never seen him look at anyone the way he looks at her. His eyes are filled with so much love and adoration. He barely takes his eyes off her when we’re all together! I’m thankful for the wonderful father that he is to her already. He’s able to comfort her when no one else is. That little girl responds so incredibly well to her daddy’s voice!

Finally going home!

Oh! I forgot to mention her nurses! She has the world’s BEST nurses! Gayle has been a NICU nurse for 22 years now. She is phenomenal at her job. You can see how much she loves the babies she works with. I’m glad she’s been Macie’s primary nurse during the day shift. She’s gotten to know Macie so well that she is able to tell when she’s hungry, wet, upset, etc. It’s nice for us to know that our baby is in the hands of someone who loves her. Her nurse the last few nights, Rachelle, is great, too! She made Macie the cutest sign for by her bed that has her name, birth stats, birthday and footprints on it. I love it! I haven’t seen Macie with her, but she interacts well with Gayle. We LOVE Gayle and all she does to care for her. We also really love Emmy, who has been her doctor twice now. I’m convinced that God is guiding her hands, as she’s the one who has caught everything so far. I’m sure her other doctors are good, but Emmy takes the time to call us and fill us in on what is going on, or to get our permission for something, etc. It’s great to watch her, because it’s obvious how much she loves what she does. Without that team, I know Macie wouldn’t be progressing like she is now. 

Macie now. Just relaxing. That girl LOVES her binky!!

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude to my Father in Heaven for allowing me to raise this sweet spirit with Tyler. I know I’m a far cry from perfect, but I hope to raise her in a way that is pleasing to Him. I love Macie. I want nothing but the best for her. 

Back to now. We finally went home as a family on February 16. Macie's three months old now, and a complete joy to have in our home! She smiles a lot, is just starting to babble, and trying to giggle. I love watching her grow!